


an absence of warmth is a hotbed for bad ideas

by Kierkegarden



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Bittersweet, Established Relationship, M/M, One Shot, Phone Sex, Questionable Facial Hair Explanations, What do Lasat dicks look like?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 07:11:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14183643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kierkegarden/pseuds/Kierkegarden
Summary: They didn’t have to differentiate themselves for survival, but instead did so as a badge of honor. Each member of Phoenix Squadron had a purpose, a reason that they were fighting, a breaking point, a moment that changed them. Each one was different. Kallus’s was Zeb.or the Kalluzeb phone sex one shot from emotional hell.





	an absence of warmth is a hotbed for bad ideas

**Author's Note:**

> This shares a title with one of my drabbles, but I decided it was too good for 100 words and we needed more.

A mentor at the Imperial Academy had once asked him why he grew his beard out that way, told him it looked silly. Good, Kallus had thought, and although the hairs sprouted thicker and the color had darkened some since he was eighteen, he still stood by the sentiment. Better silly than forgotten.

 _We’re droids,_ he thought to himself as he brushed his teeth one morning, bits of spittle catching themselves in the silly, _we might as well get to pick our paint job._ Long before Bahryn, before he took the name Fulcrum, he had already been in doubt. He was not good at the job, not because he lacked the skills required, but because he lacked the will for it. There was something deeply demoralizing about having morals as an Imperial Agent, and Kallus simply didn’t live up to his name. His heart wasn’t in it. It never had been.

“The beard makes your jaw look big, but, er, not in a bad way,” said Zeb through the secret com one night, during their biweekly call. His holographic image reflected bluish light against the wall behind Kallus’s bed.

“Mm. Wouldn’t you like to see how big my jaws can get when I wrap them around your --”

“Ssh,” Zeb hushed him, “Karabast. Someone’s coming.”

Captain Syndulla had okayed their calls on the pretense that they were kept a secret; not just from the Empire, but from the rebels as well. It was too dangerous, Zeb had explained, for anyone else to know that he was Fulcrum. Kallus fully suspected that she was using Zeb to monitor him as well. That was fair. He still wore the uniform, recited the codes and brushed his teeth with Imperial Standard toothpaste. He only hoped that Zeb wasn’t reporting _every_ detail of their time together.

“Okay, okay, we’re good.” Zeb returned to his wrist and Kallus smirked.

“As I was saying,” he started, “my jaws.”

“Mm, you were talking about wrapping them around something.”

“Oh, yes.” Kallus felt himself flush slightly and shiver. The cooling vents were turned on and his room was frigid, just as he liked to keep it for optimizing sleep. Talking to Zeb in this cold darkness, however, had an entirely different effect. It certainly wasn’t making him tired.

“If you were here with me,” Kallus said, “I’d give you a demonstration.”

He could hear the shuffle of fabric, heavy breath, and a creak, as Zeb turned over in his bunk.

“I doubt you could take it,” Zeb growled in response, “Not to brag, but I have a lot to offer.”

Kallus licked the tip of his fingers lightly, letting them travel down his chest, tracing his pectoral muscles, down his belly, following the trail of hairs that matched his beard in color. “Oh, I’d be careful,” he purred, “Start slow, tip of my tongue along the base, so lightly that you just have to grab my hair and see how much of it I could take.”

“I’d like that,” Zeb was breathing heavier now, Kallus noticed, and his eyes were becoming more and more lidded, “but only if you didn’t hurt yourself.”

“I have quite the gag reflex, my dear,” Kallus teased, brightening, “You wouldn’t like to be surprised by it?”

“I’m not denying that.”

“Maybe you’d change your tune once you see how pretty my lips look pressed around your cock. I don’t think you’d be able to resist it.”

Zeb cleared his throat. “You’re talkative tonight.”

“Only because you’re not here to shut me up.”

“What makes you think I’d want to?”

Kallus bit his lip. Had he gone too far? His breath hitched with relief as he heard a soft hum from the other side and Zeb’s breath pounding heavier than ever.

“What makes you think I wouldn’t flip you over and take you there, let you moan as loud as you want,” Zeb whispered lower into the com, “Are you a moaner, Agent Kallus? Or a screamer?”

“Depends on how good it is.”

“I can promise it will be.”

“Good or that it will happen?”

“If we live to see each other again,” Zeb answered, perhaps too honestly, and Kallus felt his lungs deflate, “Gods, I wish you were here.”

“Me too. It’s cold here in the ISB.”

They sat in a beat of silence as the vents blasted a new wave of icy air into the room, like an illustration.

“Are you alright?” Zeb finally asked.

The first thing about the rebels that Kallus noticed, even before he had joined them, was their compassion across all walks of life. They didn’t have to differentiate themselves for survival, but instead did so as a badge of honor. Each member of Phoenix Squadron had a purpose, a reason that they were fighting, a breaking point, a moment that changed them. Each one was different. Kallus’s was Zeb.

“I’ll be fine,” he answered, pulling the blankets up farther over his chest.

“You know we could get you over here at any time. You don’t have to do this. There are other things you can do to help us, we have an empty bed here or. Mine’s warm. And snuggly.” The concern radiated from Zeb’s voice, reaching Kallus from across the galaxy, and he ached for it.

“You know I can’t, even if I’ve never been more tempted.”

Ever since Bahryn, his heart had found something worth latching onto. _Was it the cold that had brought out the mighty insanity, made him willingly risk everything?_ Kallus wondered, _The cold of Bahryn or the cold of the officers eyes at the Academy or the cold that lurked under the expectation to kill innocents?_ No, Kallus knew as well as Zeb, that it was warmth that kept the rebels intact, kept them going against all odds.

“I’ll see you again,” Zeb said after a few moments in the comfortable silence, as if to convince them both of it, “And when I do, I’ll make you moan louder than anyone ever has before.”

“I’d like that,” Kallus laughed lightly.

“Heh. You wouldn’t like it the next morning.”

“How big could it possibly be?”

“Huge,” Zeb promised, “You’ll see.”

“And purple?”

“Kinda bluish at the tip.”

“Oh. Sounds attractive.” Kallus yawned.

It was the warmth that kept him focused when Thrawn’s eyes turned frosty on him, asking about the com signal that they couldn’t track. When the calls had to stop, Kallus never once considered turning. He switched the vents to heating mode, lay with the jets of air across his back, and dreamed of a better world.


End file.
